HW 31- Comments 3

From Felipe(T/W Team), has not commented yet

From Spencer (Younger Peer),
I like how you showed how even people with a "tough guy image" show sadness for things like suffering from disease. The issue of if Medicare should spend money keeping the dying alive is very controversial and I agree with your insight that if someone wants to die at home, he/she should die in comfort instead of in a hospital attached to machines.

From Amanda (T/W Team),
i like that you talked about the moral issue of in hospital care, and not just the financial issue. and i also enjoyed at the end how you talked about your friends emotions and not just his grandmothers condition. your post shows several different points of view on the same topic i enjoyed that, nice work.

your friend, amanda

From Sarker-Dad (Mentor),
You picked up an interesting and real life-related issue. I commend your strive to explore the agony of a terminally ill patient and relatives in the dying process. Honestly, I didn't know the term 'hospice' and I have learned about two types 'hospice' cares. Also have learned a big budget is also spent on such patients in their last two years of life.

I liked the last para, where you portrait the sufferings of a dying person and feelings and emotional involvement of other concerned people. This is a dilemma that most of us probably have to encounter in a way or other. We have to make tough decisions about our beloved once and young people like you need to start realizing it.

Man is mortal, no one can live in this world forever, however, most of us probably would like to see our close relatives to be in this world as much as possible. We tend to support their treatment as much as possible but the wish of dying person is also of paramount value, if one can respond their consent should be taken before taking the vital decision of giving up. Hope is key in life, we need to uphold it, may be new research or discovery may find new treatment for such dying patients.

I would encourage you to see the 'hope' of miracle treatment of such patients. Drawing up conclusions on a single or few dying patient might not reflect valuable emotional feelings of millions. Budget might not be that big consideration for keeping alive few more days of our beloved one. I would suggest you see both sides of an issue more closely and draw a conclusion at the end basing on credible findings.

All the best,
Sarwar Sarker
Parent
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For Amanda (T/W Team),
Amanda,
As always, it was a pleasure to read your blog. It provided many insights as to how limited people can be when thinking that helping other people is an act against nature. When people say doctors are playing God, then what about when a baby that is about to be born starts showing some dangerous condition that might claim his/her life and a doctor saves that baby? So my understanding would be that God never intended that baby to live. Is that doctor playing God? It weird how no one ever asks THAT question and yet it’s also normal for people not to ask that question. The best part of your writing was when you mentioned all the injustice that was happening to a man that was only trying to help others. Bianca did her project on the same topic and I found her blog very insightful as well so you should check it out if you have time. I don’t know if you watched it or not but she also has a link to a very interesting (and heartbreaking) video on her blog that goes through a man’s journey as he travels to Switzerland for his assisted suicide.

For Felipe (T/W Team),
Felipe,
I think your blog was very neatly crafted. I am referring to how you started with the scientific research and moved to the extremely emotional and personal story about your grandfather. This may sound crude but I actually enjoyed the whole fiasco that was brought on by the untimely deaths of your grandfather’s immediate family’s death. I liked how you touched on the key aspects of what could lead to someone being traumatized and how we can see similar psychological symptoms in almost everyone. Makes us realize that no matter how different we try to be, we are still all very similar and that is normal which means that it is weird…

HW 30

One of the most riveting topics in life is the process of dying. For my project, I decided to focus on the death of terminally ill patients and how they and their loved ones process losing a loved one. The dominant social practice concerning the passing away of someone who has no chance of survival is to get admitted to a hospital and spend the rest of their life connected to machines that will prolong their life by a few months. This type of care is called Hospice. Most hospice care focuses on physical, emotional, and spiritual symptoms a terminally ill patient goes through. There are two kinds of hospice care that I explore in this project; in-hospital hospice or at-home-hospice.

In class reading materials such as the article called, “The Way We Die Now” helped me understand how simple the decision between in-hospital hospice and at-home-hospice really is. “…about $67 billion – nearly a third of the money spent by Medicare – goes to patients in the last two years of life.” Instead of preventing illnesses, the government/insurance companies choose to spend money to ease the suffering from those illnesses. The money that is being spent on helping terminally ill patients die could be spent to try and stop from those patients from ever being fatal. In-hospital hospice is not just a financial problem, it also affects people’s morals. “… both she and my father let go that part of their lives and they could not control and instead began to focus on what they could control: the joys and blessings of their marriage.” The elderly couple that is the focus of the article chose to live the remainder of the time they had “surrounded by those they loved.” Some of the insights that I gained from this reading was: If granny wants to die at home so why waste more money by keeping her in the hospital attached to machines?

For the real world exploration part of this project, I decided to interview an acquaintance whose grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer and after months of chemotherapy, she finally decided to give up “on the useless exposure to radiation and constant visits to the oncologist that ended in nothing but tears.” My acquaintance that actually chose to be anonymous confessed that he was truly broken by his grandmother’s slow death. I don’t know the interviewee very well but I do know that he is someone who likes to have a tough guy image. And for him to confess that he was upset and disturbed by seeing his grandmother suffer through the chemo was somewhat shocking. He did not want to comment on how the rest of his family might have felt at that time because “I(him) don’t want to give you (me) speculative information.” But I think the true reason for his secretive nature was that he was a little ashamed because his father is a doctor as well. He is not an oncologist but he worked in the same hospital and I can imagine how disappointed and ashamed his father must have been seeing his own mother suffer at the place where he is employed to make people better. After his grandmother had decided to accept hospice care (on their own expenses), she had around a month to settle all her affairs and finally die surrounded by people that loved her.

HW 29

Facing Terminal Illness:
Facing terminal illness can break or unite a family. And sometimes both. When a person is terminally ill, all their loved ones gather to help his/her passing as cheerful as possible. Although that is kind of ironic since death or the process of dying is a very depressing affair. Our guest speaker, Beth Bernett, shared with us her experience of how her husband was diagnosed with cancer and how her family had to unite so they could all be strong. They tried their best so her husband, Erik, would never think about death. In My Brother, the author goes through the grueling process of watching her brother slowly die after he was tested HIV positive. At one point in the book the author, Jamaica, says to be tired “seeing him like this. I wish he would just die already.” Seeing her brother terminally ill made her feel sorry for him and wished he would just die instead of suffer day by day. This shows how she changed due to the fact that she was faced with the possibility that her brother might be dying because I am sure that she would never have wished that someone in her family would just die.

Being Sick:
I have personally never been sick. Or at least never been sick enough to complain about it. However, I used to have the occasional headache but that was primarily due to me getting around 3-4 hours of sleep every night. I compensated for my sleep deprivation by drinking a lot of caffeine. This started when I was 13 years old so even a moderate amount of caffeine (moderate to adults) was probably very unhealthy for me. Like with every other drug, as you use it more and more often, you also need to increase the quantity so it will give you the same kick that you would have gotten when you first started using it. My case was no different from all other drug addicts. As my parents started to notice my increase in caffeine consumption, they started to “cut me off”. After suffering from withdrawal for a few days, I had decided that I must find alternatives to my caffeine addiction so I decided to sleep more and devote less time to my computer screen. When people are sick, they do things that they would not otherwise think of doing. Same goes for people who are terminally sick. I think that is why some people consider cancer a gift. They realize what they could have done if they weren’t sick. Same way I realized if I wasn’t addicted to caffeine and computers, I would be much more successful in school and in other social practices.

HW 28 - Comments 2

For Amanda: Amanda, I think you exhibited a lot of good thoughts in this post. The fact that you and your family even went to visit a friend of your grandmother is shocking to me. I don't think I even know one of my grandparents' friends. I really liked your description of her house because I felt that it added a sense of hesitancy that you had to leave as soon as possible. Like Andy said, what your grandmother told you about being jealous of you and your brother was quite unique. Since my grandmother if she ever felt that way, would never be that honest with me. I also liked how you ended your blog saying that you would probably not treat her differently even if you saw her again because it shows how we as a society often tend to keep our first impression as the last impression. I also felt that you were treating Roberta as an illness rather than a person. I don't mean this in a bad way. Since I think I know you pretty well personally, I'm just saying you're a open person that doesn't really keep their feelings towards someone bottled up, and I like that.

Trigger Application for Macs and PCs

Step 1: Click Here To download a freeware called TimeLeft

Step 2:


Step 3:


Step 4:


Step 5:


Step 6:


Step 7:


Step 8:


Step 9:


Step 10:



And You Are Done!


Macintosh Users:

Step 1. Click Here to download an application for Mac OS X 10.2 or later
Many of you will probably have it already. It is one of Apple's (flawed) default apps.
If you do have it. Skip to Step 3

Step 2. Install the application. It is fairly simple so I will not go over it. Just make sure you are on the administrative account of the computer you are using.

Step 3. You should see this window if you have successfully installed the application:



Step 4: Go to the time frame you want to set your reminder and click on New Event. For example, I use 10:30 PM


Step 5: Right Click on the time section and click Get Info


Step 6: Set The Alarm and Message As You Please... Make sure you set the repeat time to Every Day If You Want To Make Going To Bed A Daily Habit


And You Are Done!